Inclusion Class..Opinions please!

Question

My daughter is 9 years old (4th grader). She has just started her 4th grade year yesterday. She is a very smart child. She was given the ILeap last year, she missed none on the Science and Social Studies parts. She has made principals list every year since she has been in school. Well, I find out yesterday, she was put in an inclusion class, with only 10 students plus her in the class. Her homework this week is to learn the days of the week and their spellings. She already knows this, she has learned this in first grade! I was told, by the secretary at her school that they always put smarter students in with the inclusion classes so they can help the slower students when all of their work is done. I am now waiting on a call from the principal of my daughters school to see if this is something I should be worried about. I dont want her falling behind students who are not in the inclusion classes. Have any of you had your children put in inclusion, even though they didnt need to be put in there? What would you do in this situation if this were your child?

Answer 1

My son is in 1st grade and attends a full inclusion classroom.  My son is one of the special needs kids in the class.  He is mild autistic spectrum with speech and fine motor delays, and a lower IQ.  He is working at grade level.  There are 2 teachers, a regular ed. and a spec. ed teacher.  The class can be 33 percent identified as special needs.  His class has 20 students, 4 are special needs.  

Since this is such a small class, I would be concerned as it sounds like a self-contained classroom.  I would want to know why is the work not 4th grade curriculum?  How many kids are identified?  Since her class is so small there should only be 3 or less identified kids in there.  

Full-inclusion when implemented correctly is beneficial for most kids.  There was 1 child not identified (she is typical) last year who started falling behind.  It was recommended to the mother that she is not a good fit for a full-inclusion classroom, and she will be in the regular ed. class this year.  

I would speak to the principal about the classroom assignment.  If she is not going to be doing her level work, and/or there are too many identified kids in this class I would tell the principal that this is not a good fit for your daughter and you would like her to be in the regular ed. setting so she is exposed to almost all typical peers.

Answer 2

I am a special education teacher, and I have a sister with a disability.  I also have a daughter who is very gifted, so I am "on both sides" in this discussion.  When my daughter was in elementary school, she was often asked to help other students when she had completed her own work.  (We live in a low-income area, with many immigrants, so there were a lot of children who did not speak English as their first language.  There were also a number of children from homes in which education was not valued, so they did not have a great level of support from their parents.)  My daugher was happy to help at first, but over time, it became a problem, because she felt that she was being pressured to finish her work so she could go help other kids.  It also became an issue socially, because she was viewed as a "mini-teacher" and, by some, as a kiss-up and teacher's pet.  Her school did periodic pull-outs for the Gifted and Talented Education (GATE), but it wasn't very frequent.  She was a very self-directed girl, so the formalized GATE part of it wasn't a big issue to me;  she always had ideas on how to expand a unit of study so that it was more challenging for herself.  But since she was instead helping her classmates, she missed opportunities to do more research and get more in-depth into the subject matter.

It was never that she, or I, had an issue with her CHOOSING to assist other students.  She enjoyed volunteering with kids with special needs, and she was a great role model for them.  Sharing our time and talents is wonderful, but it should never detract from a child's own educational program.  Asking your daughter to do homework on material that she mastered years ago is not benefiting her.  So I believe that you have some legitimate concerns.  I also think that the school might want to consider how they approach "inclusion."  Having 10 children with special needs in one class, and then "importing" one gifted child into that class, does not sound like a very inclusive approach.

Answer 3

I have never heard of putting smarter students in with the Special Edu kids. If it's truly an inclusion classroom all of the kids would be mixed it together learning at the same pace as the regular kids. NOT the regular kids learning at the same pace as the kids with disabitlities.

If it was my child I would ask for her to be placed with a class that is at her level, because she is not learning anything. If she isn't learning anything then why should she be there?

It sounds like there's more going on then just that.  

Answer 4

I don't blame you for being concerned! If all students are not equally placed into inclusion classrooms then I would have her placed in with peers that learn at the same pace. As your daughter progresses in school and our government continues to back "NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND" legislation, she will attend more inclusion classrooms, especially in high school! Hopefully the pace of her classes and curiculum are tiered for each type of learner so all can achieve at their highest level!

Answer 5

First of all......an inclusion class is where you have special ed students put into a regular ed classroom......with two teachers...a regular ed teacher and the special ed teacher!  ALL an inclusion classroom does is let the special ed students feel "normal"......they do all the work the other kids do......but they get the "extra help" when needed!!!  It has nothing to do with putting smarter students with the "slower" ones.........!!!  Inclusion classrooms are meant to help a student with a disability become more INCLUDED!!  with other students his/her age!!  There is no reason you should be concerned!!  She will NOT fall behind...........if a special ed student lags behind then most of the time it is in the IEP to take the student to the RESOURCE room.....which means he/she will be pulled out to work more one-on-one!!  I don't think you should do anything in this situation..........there is nothing wrong with your daughter being in an inclusion room!!

Answer 6

I experienced this very thing when I was in elementary school. Though I was very intelligent and had a 10th grade reading level in the 4th grade, they put me in a regular classroom simply because they didn't have a class for intellectually gifted students. They did have an academic enrichment program, however, in which the A.G. (academically gifted) students were pulled out of their regular class for a few hours each week. Academically, this didn't affect me much either way. I was an avid reader so I managed to supplement my education that way. Could I have done more in an A.G. classroom? Probably. But not being in one did not put me behind.

My problems occurred socially rather than mentally. I had a difficult time relating to children my age becaucse of my intelligence. They had a difficult time understanding my advanced vocabulary (which, at the time, I had a difficult time "dumbing down" for them) and my play tended to be more sophisticated than they were interested in. I don't know for sure if it would have been any different if I had been in an A.G. classroom but I feel that it would have.

Another option you may consider is having her skip a grade. Sociallly, skipping one grade won't make that much of a difference. Or perhaps you could change schools. It seems like your current school isn't exactly top-notch if students are just learning to spell the days of the week in 4th grade. Your daughter was ahead of the pack on that but others should have learned that by at least 3rd grade.

It's great to see a parent as involved in their child's education as you. Sadly, many parents are not involved at all. As she gets older, your involvment will help her to get better opportunities, (such as being able to take the PSAT in middle school) and help her plan for college early on, giving her an even higher advantage over her peers. The best of luck to both of you, and always keep in mind your involvement is more important than any instruction that she may recieve in the classroom.

Answer 7

Well they should of had to have your premission to do so.  Most students that get put in to that class are only put there for an hour or so a day to help the other kids after they are done in their regular class however I would be concerned that they did this with out your knowleged and Go down there and talk to them face to face. Make the put everything in writting. What is your daughter getting from this? it is taking away from her time with her class.  And if they put her in there all day.  I would be going to the school board. They can not move a child to another class with out the parents permission.